It’s been a busy week for photo-use fights between photographers, rock bands

It has not been a great week for relations between photographers and rock bands.

Earlier this week, a story surfaced about a tiff between photographer Rohan Anderson and post-hardcore band The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who had posted one of Anderson’s photos of the group to their Facebook page without permission, and cropped out his watermark.

After some snippy back and forth, including a claim by the band that “most forms of digital art should be free,” the band ended up paying Anderson for the photo, and will be offering free downloads of their back catalog on July 4th.

Part of a rant from Three Days Grace tour manager Shawn Hamm.

Then yesterday, a tour manager for hard-rockers Three Days Grace posted a lengthy Facebook rant against photographers who want their work taken down from social media sites, even when credit is given and watermarks are left in place. Using a masterful command of grammar and the English language in general, he argues that photographers who have asked the band for a photo pass should be happy to have their work in front of so many eyeballs.

PetaPixel has pretty exhaustive coverage of both rock’n’roll meltdowns, so head their way for more details on the spats. (Salty language awaits.) If nothing else, they’ve raised awareness about copyright issues.

But what do you all think? Copyright infringement has arguably affected musicians more than any other kind of artist, so should they be more sensitive to violations? Should photographers be flexible about social media use, if proper credit is given? Sound off.